B V 

4501 




Class 1 3V 4 5 01 

Book _2_^ 

Copyright N° _ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 



AN 
IDEALIST AT LARGE 



f . ' 



' 



BY 



W.'DUNLOP ROBINSON 




THE PILGRIM PRESS 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



X 

^ 



M' 



Copyright, 1913 
By Luther H. Cart 



THE • PLIMPTON • PRESS 

[ WD'O] 
NORWOOD • MASS • U • S * A 



/. 



«f* 



)CI.A351255 
fab f 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 



TPHE impression is abroad that 
this work-a-day world is no fit 
place for an Idealist. No sooner does 
one mention an idealist, however 
vague a characteristic of life is meant 
by that term, than the question begins 
to obtrude itself whether such a per- 
son should be at large; whether he 
should not rather be confined, in a 
carefully guarded seclusion, apart 
from the world of tangled and some- 
what harsh affairs. Oh yes, we have 
a place for him, where he may be 
tolerated, but not in the possession 
and control of things. The world 
admits his usefulness, as a sort of 
mild corrective for a too great en- 
tanglement and absorption in the 
business of living. It is fine to have 
a bit of idealistic interpretation of 
[s] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

things for the dreaming of an odd 
moment in the evening twilight, after 
one has packed away a full day's 
work and so feels at liberty to give 
himself to a more or less idle con- 
templation of the universe. 

"We divide life into two movements. 
There is the world of affairs into 
which we put most of our energy, and 
where we are led by the single en- 
deavor to bring things to pass. In 
this world we are materialists, though 
not philosophical materialists to be 
sure. If anyone could induce us to 
stop, in the midst of a day, long 
enough to discuss our philosophy at 
all, we should probably use the words 
of some kind of idealism. But for 
practical purposes, and for the day 
itself, we are immersed in material 
things. It is inevitably so. Here are 
certain things which must be done — 
the keeping of a house, the cooking of 
a meal, the managing of a railway, 
the writing of a book. We live for 
these things. So far we are mate- 
rialists. 

[4] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

And then some of us switch over 
onto another track for an hour, to 
ponder upon the spiritual interpreta- 
tion of life. We think of living as the 
development and expression of per- 
sonality. The end of life is that one 
shall become a thoroughly complete 
individual, living in a society of other 
individuals, and in the face of a clear 
vision of a continuous brotherhood 
stretching through the generations 
and into the mystery of the future. 

Now the problem is how we are to 
be always in the same world, not to be 
continually jumping from one world 
to the other. A man may be a crea- 
ture of two worlds, but a large part 
of the art of life is to learn how to 
make life a real unity; to have one's 
fundamental attitude of mind always 
the same. It is comparatively easy 
to be an idealist — to let one 's thought 
and feeling be dominated by a spirit- 
ual interpretation — in the moonlight 
of a summer evening, or in the glow 
of some great emotion, or in the im- 
pulse of some humanitarian effort to 

[5] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

rescue or uplift a fellow man. And 
doubtless one will recognize that in 
such a moment he is at his best ; that 
now he touches the highest plane of 
his life. This, he will declare, is his 
real self. If the Power of the universe 
could stop him just then and value him 
by that mood, he would be glad to 
stake his life upon the valuation. 

But how to carry the attitude of 
spiritual appreciation into the affairs 
of the days — that 's the problem. 
Anyone can be an idealist once in a 
while. Any decent person has cer- 
tain ideals of living which are fine 
and high. He cherishes a picture of 
the kind of a person he would like to 
be. But can he live in the constant 
attitude of that ideal? There is a 
recognized place for an idealist in the 
vacation times and vacation moods of 
living, but can he roam at large in 
the kind of a world we have to live 
in, and achieve anything which can be 
called a success? Shall we allow that 
idealist confined in our own souls to 
go forth, positively, into the business 

[6] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

of the days, and claim the obeisance 
of all the other forces or motives or 
interpretations? Shall one dare to 
find his treasure in the heaven of his 
own personality, where the thief can- 
not steal because the thief, being the 
kind of a person he is, can see nothing 
there to allure him? 

Scarcely has idealism — by which 
we mean the spiritual interpretation 
and appreciation of the facts of life 
— shown a disposition to claim its 
place, than it is met with the state- 
ment that it will not practically work 
in such a world as this. 

Followers of the Teacher of Galilee 
have been busy through all the Chris- 
tian centuries carefully reinterpreting 
his teachings to make them harmonize 
with a kind of a Benjamin Franklin 
attitude toward life. That kind of a 
thing, we are told, might work in some 
other kind of a world. If the so-called 
millennium should ever show itself 
with moral and physical evil removed, 
it might then be possible to live in such 
a fashion. Or if we should hit upon 
[7] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

the perfect system of social control, 
it might be possible. In any case, it 
is fine that we should cling to what- 
ever idealism we may possess, because 
doubtless the " Other World " will 
have a larger place for its use, and 
it may be well to have a little stock 
on hand which will pay dividends in 
that world, for the chances are we 
shall some day find ourselves there. 
But for this present earth, under ex- 
isting conditions, idealism will hardly 
work. The Sermon on the Mount is 
a fine piece of literature. It presents 
an ideal way of life in an ideal world ; 
but this is not an ideal world and 
therefore, here and now, it is hardly 
practicable. 

You see, we are led back to the 
question, should an idealist be at 
large? Or, if anyone desires to put 
the question in more religious terms, 
will the teaching of Jesus work in the 
practical affairs of to-day? Of course 
one can be so devoted to Jesus as his 
Lord that he will be glad to follow the 
teaching in any case and be a martyr. 

[8] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

But that does not meet the situation. 
Being a martyr is fine — often it is 
necessary. But a martyr to be useful 
must be a kind of pioneer. He leaves 
behind him a way made plain by the 
very fact of his martyrdom. It is 
that way we are seeking now, not the 
martyrdom. 

In order to make the way apparent 
to our eyes it is necessary to do more 
than show that idealism — or, let us 
say, the teaching of Jesus — can be 
made to work " after a fashion " by 
some sort of effort. It is necessary to 
show that it is the only attitude that 
will work, the world being as it is. If 
it be not true that the teaching of 
Jesus is the only road to a successful 
and satisfactory life in this present 
world and under present conditions, 
it is difficult to understand why one 
should attempt to follow it at all. A 
way which may lead to a far-off possi- 
bility, in some other kind of existence, 
and is not workable in this existence, 
has not much to lure us who are 
obliged to live here. 
[9] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

As a preliminary to such an at- 
tempt, we may boldly proclaim that 
the way of living for and upon things, 
the finding of one 's main life in bring- 
ing certain things to pass — whether 
it be the managing of a house or a 
railway — is a failure as a way of 
life. Why should anyone cling with 
the tenacity of despair to a philosophy 
which has proved in a thousand ways 
that it does not lead to what we want? 

The only reason why Jesus con- 
demned the conventional teaching of 
his day, embodied in the Pharisees, 
was because it had failed to create a 
satisfactory life. It had nothing to 
offer. One might leave Jesus' com- 
pany if he so desired, but in doing so 
he would be following a mere nega- 
tion. The " rich young man " went 
back to a confessed failure. Jesus 
may have been mistaken; that is at 
least conceivable, but there can be no 
doubt that he lived in the sure belief 
that all other ways of life offered in 
the whole horizon of his day failed to 
furnish life. 

[10] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

Is it any different to-day? The 
obvious fact about any materialistic 
way of living is that it does not fur- 
nish life. A practical materialist may 
have a certain amount of real satis- 
faction, but it comes to him outside 
of the things he deals with. The 
man who accumulates millions gets 
his sense of satisfaction, not from the 
sheer possession, but from the use 
of his ability toward a purpose; just 
as a " safe-cracker " might find a 
keen joy in his sensitive touch and 
his artistic manipulation of a lock. 
The using of one's powers toward 
an end is a different kind of fact 
from the mere end itself. The former 
deals with personal elements, the 
other with things only. 

Suppose a man seeking his happi- 
ness and success by what Paul calls 
living " by sight," this man believes 
only what he can see, enjoys only what 
he can touch or experience, finds all 
the materials of living in his immedi- 
ate environment. Now the thing to 
say about such an attitude is not that 
[ii] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

it is wrong, not that it is irreligious. 
The fact about it is that our world is 
not made for that. It doesn't work. 
It stakes life upon the most uncertain 
and unknown facts. Any day may 
leave such a man stranded. 

The uncertainties of life, the con- 
tinual change in conditions, in per- 
sonal relations, in all the physical ma- 
terials of living, are often thought 
cause for sadness. We call it a mys- 
tery and suppose it something abnor- 
mal and often absurd. As a matter 
of fact, however, this is the only nor- 
mal world we know. It has always 
been so, and was evidently intended to 
be so. And in spite of such an obvious 
consideration, so obvious as to be a 
trifle commonplace, many people re- 
peat to themselves with evident seri- 
ousness and with a pompous show of 
wisdom, that the way to live is to 
depend upon the very things which 
are not dependable. Surely this is an 
absurdity. 

"What we need to discover is how to 
live successfully and practically in 

[12] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

such a world, where no fact is stable 
and sure except the fact of person- 
ality. A person is a spiritual fact. 
At least — if anyone insists upon a 
division — we know more about our 
spiritual self than we do about our 
material self. We talk about matter 
and spirit as though it is matter which 
is known and spirit that is a mystery. 
But the truth is just the other way 
around. Matter is the mystery. We 
do not know what it is. Spirit may be 
also a mystery, but it is less mysteri- 
ous than the other, for we are directly 
conscious of spirit. Therefore, we 
must begin our search for the way 
of a successful life by the recognition 
that it must be the way of a spiritual 
interpretation. No other way will fit 
the present world. The man who is 
a materialist in his practical living 
and an idealist in parentheses is liv- 
ing upside down. It is precisely in 
practical affairs that idealism is of 
greatest worth. If one cares to think 
that all existences come from matter ; 
that life is the outcome of some mys- 
[13] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

terious strivings of material atoms; 
that there is no personal God ; that all 
personal relations are subordinate to 
the endeavor to get a grip upon every- 
thing within reach — let him specu- 
late about it at odd moments, but for 
the sake of any decent success in liv- 
ing let him not try to live according 
to such a philosophy. It will not 
work. The idealism of Jesus not only 
is practicable, but it is the only prac- 
ticable way of life in the world as 
it is. 



[14] 



II 



II 

ADMITTING then that an idealist 
has a right to be at large in this 
present world, what attitude will he 
take toward the ordinary facts of life ? 
Here is the fact of work. In the old 
story of the Garden of Eden a part of 
the result coming to the man for his 
disobedience was that he was driven 
out to toil for his living. Evidently, 
in the philosophy of the people to 
whom the story made its first appeal, 
the ideal of life was to be at ease in 
a garden where everything needed for 
one's subsistence was produced with- 
out any expenditure of effort. But 
even they discovered that such a para- 
dise was impossible. Man could not 
hold it, even when it was given to him. 
A little more and deeper experience 
would have revealed the additional 
fact that such a paradise is not de- 

[17] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

sirable. The way of redemption, ac- 
cording to the ancient story, and 
according to all experience since, is 
the way of work. Instead of trying 
to idealize a kind of life in an im- 
possible garden, our real task is to 
idealize the thing that is. 

Every kind of work needs a mind 
which can unlock the treasure of 
poetry and the call for human service 
stored up within it. But, unfortu- 
nately, it seems easier to look back 
and idealize the old days than it is to 
idealize our own; probably because 
facts become hazy in the passage of 
time and catch, through the haze, a 
glamour of romance. 

Every generation has talked about 
the " good old days " since Adam left 
the Garden of Eden, in spite of the 
fact that life was pretty much of a 
failure in that old Garden. Perhaps 
there is more obvious poetry in a 
gang of men swinging across a field 
with the rhythmical motion of flashing 
scythes than in the clatter of a ma- 
chine drawn by sweating horses. But 

[18] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

all that makes for the idealization of 
work still remains. Yes, it is in- 
creased in this day of an open world. 
Every task leads the worker, who has 
an open mind, out into the problems 
and social movements of the world. 
It is a gateway into the main currents 
of humanity's life. 

It is an interesting sign-post of this 
phase of human nature that as soon as 
one begins to talk about any line of 
effort he begins to idealize it. Sup- 
pose, if one can stretch his imagina- 
tion so far, that a meeting was held 
in the interest of maintaining open 
saloons in a town. What would a 
speaker on such a platform say? 
Would he appeal to the benefits to 
be derived from getting drunk? 
Would he say in eloquent terms that 
drunkenness is good for family life 
and social life? Would he urge 
parents to hasten to the saloon with 
their boys and girls and drink all they 
can stand? Even an audience of 
saloon keepers would not tolerate such 
an appeal. The speaker would rather 

[19] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

make an attempt — however pathetic 
it might prove to be — to idealize the 
subject by appealing to right and free- 
dom and personal liberty, stealing the 
language of heaven to use in the 
devil's battle. 

A good test of the social value of 
work is to see if you can honestly 
idealize it. If I am working on a 
house I may do this or that because 
the boss directs it and with no other 
thought. I only see the effect. Or I 
may advance a little to see the wages 
I am to receive, and plan what I shall 
do with them in the making of as com- 
fortable a life as possible. Or, I may 
go beyond that to perceive that this 
house I am helping to build is to be 
a place for human life, to be tinged 
by the love and struggles and trage- 
dies and successes of a family. I am 
contributing to other lives, to the 
building of a city. Should not this 
vision — which is but the actual fact 
— have its effect upon my work? If 
it be a good house and well built, a 
gleam of satisfaction comes to me. I 

[20] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

may be a poor man, and have not 
much to give to the general life of 
society. But here is my day's work 
— here is my gift, my contribution to 
social welfare — and I have put some- 
thing of myself into it. 

The idealist does not overlook or 
minimize the necessity of earning a 
livelihood. He does not forget the ne- 
cessity, oftentimes, of a struggle for 
better conditions of labor. But he 
sees also that work enters into the 
righteousness of social living and that 
it should be, in itself, a means of per- 
sonal enrichment. "We serve the world 
in many ways. But no one can over- 
look the fact that a man's chief way of 
service is to be found in his work — 
whether it be the making of a road 
or preaching a sermon. The first so- 
cial demand upon every one of us is 
that we attend to our own business and 
that we make that business the ex- 
pression of a Christian attitude 
toward the general life. We have 
begun to insist that public office is a 
public trust. The next step is an even 

[21] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

higher step than that. It is to insist 
that every man in a business, or pro- 
fession, or any labor is also in a place 
of public trust. Shyster practice at 
the bar, ignorant practice of medicine, 
insincere or dull preaching, yellow 
journalism, poor farming, shoddy 
building, all these things cheapen the 
life of the community. It is not say- 
ing too much, either, to suggest that 
many a family life may be lowered or 
spoiled by bad housekeeping. 

And what shall one say of the tre- 
mendous task of the business men of 
to-day? Any constructive movement 
for the bettering of the workingmen 
must come through those who are in 
direct control of production. It is not 
enough any longer that we insist that 
employers as a class shall be honest 
and decent, or even that they shall 
institute lunch rooms and model tene- 
ments for their employees. That 
would be a good beginning. The time 
has come when those in control of 
business should give their minds and 
energies to the working out of an eco- 

[22 ] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

nomic system which will establish 
more just conditions. There needs to 
be a real sentiment for humanity in 
the very central office of business. 
There is this sentiment in the Church 
and to a large extent in the general 
public mind,, but where it is most 
needed is in business. Here again all 
rests upon the idealization of business 
— the perception that industry itself 
shall make its contribution to personal 
values and to social life. The " cap- 
tain of industry " to-day who only 
accumulates his millions is not filling 
his job. He is, to this extent, a fail- 
ure. Why do we consent to calling 
him successful? Where he fails is 
precisely in his business. There has 
been put into his hands the oppor- 
tunity of making a real, living contri- 
bution to the welfare of his fellows. 
It is as though the world of humanity, 
struggling under adverse conditions, 
were holding up hands of appeal to 
him, not to give money to this or that 
movement, but to use his brain, his ex- 
ecutive ability, his position and re- 

[23] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

sources of personal life for the great 
and glorious task of setting the lives 
of men upon a basis of justice and 
democracy. Instead of that he turns 
out railroad iron, or coal, or dollars 
— and that is all. No right-minded 
person objects to wealth, whether in 
the hands of his neighbors or of him- 
self. The question which ought to 
be asked is a much bigger and deeper 
question — does a man render his 
service to the general life, according 
to his ability and his opportunity? 

If a certain group of men had pos- 
sessed a brotherly feeling, a real sense 
of the value of individual lives and of 
the conditions which minister to life, 
a great industrial struggle would have 
been prevented. But because these 
men who are in control of the industry 
did not have a sense of the personal 
values connected with their work, the 
struggle came on. A thousand fami- 
lies suffered, many people died as an 
indirect result of it, many families 
were forced into pauperism from 
which they never recovered, many 

[24] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

others were driven into evil and 
wretchedness. Now, there is no doubt 
that social justice will ultimately 
come, somehow or other. But that 
the way to its coming should be over 
such a rough and disastrous road, so 
filled with the bodies of those who 
have fallen by the wayside, is due to 
the failure of society to adjust itself 
to the needs of the situation. The 
part of society which had a direct con- 
trol over the situation, and could have 
prevented much of the disaster, was 
precisely this group of men who were 
in control of the industry. What 
were they doing? Were they asleep? 
Oh no, anything but that. They were 
engaged in making the business a suc- 
cess ! And shall we say that they suc- 
ceeded because forsooth the dividends 
kept up? Is it not much truer to the 
facts to say that the business has 
failed? For the aim and end of any 
business or work is to produce satis- 
faction for living beings, and in this 
it has failed. 

The point of it all is that the need 

[25] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

of to-day is for the idealist in busi- 
ness. The so-called practical man, 
whose practicality consists only in 
controlling things, may have his place 
somewhere, but in the main avenues of 
life we wait for idealists. We must 
learn to work for God or we cannot 
succeed in doing what common life 
demands. 



[26] 



Ill 



Ill 

HPHE other great sphere of life is the 
realm of personal relations and 
contacts. These two realms — of work 
and of personal relations — cannot in- 
deed be kept apart nor even compared 
with each other. The one runs at 
once into the other. All work brings 
one into some kind of contact with his 
fellows, either in the process of its 
prosecution or in the end for which 
it is undertaken, ministering to the 
common life. But for purposes of 
thought one may speak of the two 
realms of living as though each had 
an existence of its own. What is the 
attitude of our idealist in the some- 
what tangled contacts with people? 
In order to be true to the demands 
of this sphere of life, in order to even 
see what the actual facts of personal 
relationships are, in order to be able 

[29] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

to meet and understand people in the 
practical reality of their lives, it is 
necessary that one shall idealize 
people. 

The falsity which hides itself in 
much of our valuation of people is 
that curious twist of judgment which 
induces us to accept people at their 
worst, or at least at something under 
their best. And yet we do not wish 
to be valued in that fashion ourselves. 
Moreover, we know that in our own 
case from such a basis of judgment 
one would not arrive at the truth. We 
are conscious of the fact of to-day, 
the surface fact, and we are also con- 
scious of a more important perma- 
nent fact which is bigger and truer 
than to-day's deed. Suppose a man 
should start out to live by the process 
of placing the valuation of himself 
upon the basis of his worst moods. 
Does anyone need to inquire or to 
investigate in order to arrive at a 
conclusion as to where that man will 
land? Would such a man be living 
out his own true life — while making 
[so] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

his decisions under the shadow of his 
gloomiest and most unreal moments? 
In order to be true to oneself, to live 
out one's own natural life, one must 
idealize himself. He must value him- 
self according to his best and deepest 
and must take that for his practical 
guide, else he is lost. 

The same is true of one's relation 
to other people. We have learned to 
meet our friends on an ideal plane, we 
go about the world with something 
deep within us calling unto the deep, 
and until that call is answered, no 
crowd, no summer day, no brilliant bit 
of landscape, no city's clattering 
street will preserve the heart from 
loneliness. What you want is some- 
one you can meet on the plane of your 
best and deepest life. You idealize 
your friend, you discount or overlook 
the little possible irritations and fric- 
tions of companionship, valuing him 
the while according to the reality you 
have discovered. 

We have learned this truth concern- 
ing friendship. But is not this an 

[31] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

indication of the true process of all 
personal contacts? When we fail to 
idealize we at once begin to misjudge 
our fellows. There are two very com- 
mon mistakes in this connection. One 
is often made when we say things 
about another by way of passing judg- 
ment, especially about his motives, 
without sufficient evidence. It is sur- 
prising how little evidence is required 
— " somebody told me." We assume 
that the ' ' somebody ' ' knows what he 
is talking about, when very likely he 
does not. 

The other mistake is more common, 
and more deadly and much less fre- 
quently recognized. We value a per- 
son according to his worst. We say 
something which is true. That is, it 
is accurate, it exactly corresponds to 
a fact. We know that a certain per- 
son did or said a certain thing, and 
it proves to be exactly as we say. But 
we forget that accuracy is not always 
truth. We value a person by a fact 
of yesterday, and we fail utterly to 
perceive that that word or deed of yes- 
OS] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

terday is not representative of the 
person. It represents a fact, but not 
a person. The report of it is a sur- 
face truth, but a deeper and more im- 
portant lie. Your truth is a false- 
hood. 

Suppose you had been standing by 
the fire in the court-yard on that tragic 
night of history when Jesus of Galilee 
was brought in to his illegal trial, and 
had heard Peter denying — in the ban- 
ter of the fireside idlers — that he had 
ever heard of the man on trial. And 
suppose afterward, in your zeal for 
truth, you had gone to Jesus to warn 
him that his disciple Peter was a liar 
and a hypocrite and a traitor. And 
you would have known your facts! 
Oh, yes ! Why ! did you not hear him 
yourself, with your own two ears, 
denying his master! And perhaps 
you would have been surprised and 
a good deal disgusted at Jesus' ob- 
tuseness, when your true report was 
met with a quiet smile. Indeed, you 
might have been more disgusted to 
have your report met with a strong, 

[S3] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

indignant word of disapproval. It is 
easy to see now that you would have 
been telling the biggest lie about Peter 
you could utter, all the bigger lie be- 
cause of the accuracy of your words. 
For your report would represent 
Peter's actual words on that occasion 
— and even that without any of the 
circumstances — but it would com- 
pletely misrepresent Peter. Jesus 
knew better, and he did not make the 
cheap mistake of valuing a man by 
his worst and weakest moment. 

Now, one may object that the only 
thing we know about a person is what 
we can see and hear. Yes, but we must 
judge by all we can see and hear, not 
by a part of it. Every personal rela- 
tion needs interpretation, even if 
we translate another's unspoken or 
wrongly spoken thought into appro- 
priate words. It is one's business to 
think of people in large terms, because 
they are truer terms. But the ques- 
tion again is fundamentally one of 
attitude. Is a man content with the 
mere surface facts concerning people 

[34] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

— what kind of houses they live in, 
what they do, how much they earn, 
what they say on a certain occasion, 
what kind of clothes they wear, or is 
he at least looking for something be- 
yond all this — the depths and possi- 
bilities of people ? The idealist in this 
respect is the one who is much more 
likely to see the actual truth, to be 
successful in his contacts with his 
fellow beings. 

There is another aspect of this ques- 
tion of personal relationships where 
the idealist is even more clearly seen 
to be practically successful. It is in 
following what we may call Jesus' 
doctrine of non-resistance. It is not 
a popular doctrine, partly because we 
take for granted that it is something 
less heroic than it is, and partly be- 
cause many people prefer to be ruled 
by whim, or sudden impulse, or by 
other people, rather than to be suc- 
cessful in controlling life from within. 
We make stumbling progress, largely 
in a kind of bungling fashion, by the 
giving and taking of blows. But the 

[35] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

Teacher pointed out that the way of 
success is the way of no retaliation, 
' ' whosoever smiteth thee on thy right 
cheek, turn to him the other also." 

If Jesus were a maker of cheap 
rules we might suppose this a little 
rule of action. But being the kind of 
a constructive thinker he was, it will 
pay anyone who cares to find out to 
get his mind around to the Teacher's 
point of view and ask himself with 
some seriousness what he is talking 
about. It is the point of view of a 
positive, constructive, successful life. 
And what it obviously says is that you 
need not and should not permit an- 
other's wrong attitude to determine 
what you shall be. Decide your pre- 
vailing temper for yourself, and from 
within yourself. If another man sees 
fit to be violent, shall I therefore be 
violent? If another man desires to 
fight, must I allow him to degrade me 
into the class of a rowdy or a bully? 
Are you going to permit your temper, 
the atmosphere of your personality, to 
be decided by another person's en- 

[36] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

mity? " Oh," somebody cries out, 
" but he has decided it! he has done 
so and so against me!" No, he has 
not decided it. You decide it yourself. 
Shall a man take pride in exclaim- 
ing that he never allows another to 
step on his toes, that he never receives 
a blow without returning it in kind 
and in greater degree? That is the 
philosophy of any yellow dog prowl- 
ing about the street. That is the 
philosophy of the savage, of the primi- 
tive man. Surely there is something 
better for a civilized being. That bet- 
ter thing is precisely what Jesus said 
— be your own master. Do not de- 
grade yourself into an attitude of 
mind corresponding to any enemy who 
happens to come along. Substitute a 
loving heart for a vengeful heart. Ex- 
press in your relations to people a 
temper which flows from your own in- 
ner conception of the highest and 
truest ideal of living, and do not be 
afraid of overdoing it. You cannot 
carry such a process too far. For 
always, your expressions — or at least 

[37] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

the flavor of your actions and words, 
whatever the actions or words may 
have to be — correspond to your best 
vision. 

Is such a teaching the doctrine of 
a crank or a fanatic? Or is it, after 
all, the way to success in this practical 
world of ours? Is it not the method 
of a positive, original, creative kind 
of life? Is it not the method of a 
man who knows the kind of a person 
he wants to be; one who, instead of 
responding to and following whatever 
may happen to be his personal en- 
vironment for the time, sets out to 
control his life from within. There is 
not only a place in the world for such 
an idealist, but that is the only atti- 
tude which can be maintained success- 
fully in a world like this, made up as 
it is of all kinds of people. You may 
even call this attitude the highest kind 
of self-assertion, provided you keep 
well in mind what self it is you are 
thus asserting. If meekness is a vir- 
tue to be cultivated, it must be seen 
to be a positive, constructive virtue, 

[38] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

and not a merely passive resignation 
to whatever happens to be the experi- 
ence of to-day. It means precisely 
not to be suggestible to every influ- 
ence, but to manifest, in whatever cir- 
cumstances, a good will. If I should 
rise up in my puny pride and exclaim, 
1 ' I want my will done, ' ' I should not 
be saying anything of worth. What 
difference does it make to the world 
whether my futile person is recog- 
nized and followed or not? But if 
in a great devotion, I should lift up 
my empty hands and life to the source 
of all power, and exclaim, " Thy will 
be done! " in me and in the world, 
what bigger thing can I say? I am 
thus linking myself with the Creator ; 
opening the gates of my whole per- 
sonality for the stream of life to flow 
into me and through me; taking a 
positive place in the world as a real 
force for the Kingdom of Heaven. 



[39] 



IV 



IV 

TT is the idealist who is able to see 
the truth of things ; who can rightly 
interpret the world which is before his 
eyes, and thus understanding can pro- 
ceed to guide life according to knowl- 
edge. We usually think of science 
as the body of knowledge, but science 
is only concerned with the investiga- 
tion and formulation of the laws of 
sequences. It has nothing directly to 
do with their interpretation. Pre- 
sumably, if we could have a complete 
body of science, it would be possible 
to predict with mechanical certainty 
the result of every action, and possi- 
bly even of every thought. In which 
case, with the result staring one in 
the face, action might be more uni- 
form and correct. Choices would be 
obviously narrowed down to the single 
choice of life or death. Even then it 

[43] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

would be questionable whether char- 
acter would be in any wise bettered, 
because choices would have not much 
more significance than the choice as 
to which of two ways one will take 
when one way is directly over a 
precipice. 

Whether such complete knowledge 
is a good thing or not is but a specu- 
lation. We do not live in such a world 
— at least, not yet. We must make 
our guesses, if you call them such. 
And if one is to guess right it is neces- 
sary to see more than there is to see. 

Why is it that so many people have 
a half-concealed notion that the lan- 
guage of the New Testament reflects 
either a life entirely different in very 
essence from ours, or else that Chris- 
tians then had visions and perceptions 
so different from what we know as to 
be almost unintelligible to us. One 
reads Jesus ' account of his own temp- 
tations in the desert (of course he 
must have told the story himself, 
doubtless to illustrate some striking 
doctrine), queer temptations of the 

[44] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

devil, and yet if some accurately 
truthful witness had been present he 
would have seen nothing whatever — 
nothing but a lonely man meditating 
in the solitude. We read some of his 
great utterances and wonder why peo- 
ple did not see that this was the Son 
of God, but the passerby saw only a 
corner preacher — some queer fellow 
with a crazy notion, possibly true 
enough but entirely impractical. We 
read the description of the day of 
Pentecost, tongues of fire and the 
sound of a wind and men set on fire 
with a great, illuminating idea and a 
corresponding enthusiasm. But the 
lookers-on, most of them, saw only 
some fanatics with a foolish, impossi- 
ble message. So through the whole 
New Testament, the language soars 
into rare heights of experience and 
leaves us looking into heaven, won- 
dering why the ancient glowing ro- 
mance of life has departed and 
whether it is ever coming back. 

But it is all a question of interpre- 
tation. The facts! — why, the facts 

[45] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

of that day were as mean and sordid 
and commonplace as facts could be. 
One wishes some indifferent spectator 
had written his account of the cruci- 
fixion. Would it be like the accounts 
we have? You would still have the 
facts — terrible, vulgar, shuddering 
facts — cruel with hate ; a little love 
if one looked closely enough to see a 
few weeping women and silent men; 
a condemned criminal who kept his 
self-mastery and his manhood; some 
strange happenings tinged with the 
mystery of coincidence. You would 
go away trying to forget — that is all. 
But that this man was showing forth 
the divine love even then ! — well, to 
perceive that you will have to use 
something besides ordinary, practical 
sight. But that deeper, unseen reality 
is the important fact of all, beside 
which all else is nothing. And that is 
a thing of every day's perception. 
Only the man who sees that deeper 
interpretation of life can be truly said 
to be living in the world that actually 
exists. Shall one describe actual life 

[46] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

in trivial, commonplace words? Or 
shall he describe it in the language of 
the New Testament? Certainly the 
latter would be much nearer to the 
truth. 

I have not been concerned to define 
an idealist in accurate formula. One 
can make the term as hazy as he 
pleases. And I have not been con- 
cerned to plead that everyone should 
be an idealist. That is as one chooses. 
I am only concerned to point out that 
an idealist of some sort is the only 
person who can manage to live suc- 
cessfully in this present world. There 
may be some hope for another attitude 
in some future life, but not in this 
life. For the idealist is not an idle 
dreamer; he is not a looker-on, 
whether in the ranks of wealth or 
poverty; he is not a mere grumbler 
because he has nothing, nor a mere 
consumer because he has all things. 
He is one who lives a positive, forth- 
right life, recognizing that the source 
of power is from within. He does his 

[47] 



AN IDEALIST AT LARGE 

work in the attitude of one who there- 
by serves the world. He meets his 
fellows — friend and enemy — believ- 
ing with Tolstoy that there are no 
circumstances in which a human being 
can be treated without affection. He 
knows that he is dependent upon God 
for all the power he has, and he dares 
to believe that God is dependent upon 
human beings. There is no way for 
things to be adjusted according to the 
laws of righteousness ; for inaugurat- 
ing a system of social control that 
shall be just and fair; for the possi- 
bility of love and forgiveness to be- 
come known to men, except through 
human beings. God cannot do these 
things — at least, not in the world as 
it is now — except by way of human 
agents. 



[48] 



7 19ff 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



